Historical Reconstructions that we love! (in Europe)

[Chadoh25]

Mostar looks lovely. But whats up with those two buildings missing their roofs? Are they going to be restored anytime soon?

[Leo_C]

In the UK two of the most important restorations have been the House of Commons in Westminster Palace
image hosted on flickr

Winston Churchill inspecting the damage


Today
image hosted on flickr

image hosted on flickr



Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation. Together with Buckingham Palace in London and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, it is one of the principal official residences of the British monarch. Queen Elizabeth II spends many weekends of the year at the castle, using it for both state and private entertaining.

In 20 November 1992, a fire which began in the Queen's private chapel (between "C" and "D" on plan) quickly spread. The fire raged for 15 hours until it had destroyed nine of the principal state rooms, and severely damaged over 100 more—in all the larger part of the upper ward. One-fifth of the floor space of the castle was damaged—an area of 9,000 square metres (97,000 sq ft). The restoration programme was not complete until 1997, 70% of it funded by the decision to open to the public for the first time the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. The total cost of repairing the damage was £37 million. The restoration was undertaken at no additional cost to the British taxpayer. So successful was the restoration and faithfulness to the original plans and decorations that the distinction between old and new is hard to detect

[havaska]

I wish I could be posting pictures of coventry both before WW2 and after reconstruction, but alas

In fact, during the 50s,60s and 70s we in Britain actually pulled down a lot of our architectural gems that had survived.

Like this example.

Birmingham Central Library before:



and after

[SaRaJeVo-City]

Originally Posted by Chadoh25

Mostar looks lovely. But whats up with those two buildings missing their roofs? Are they going to be restored anytime soon?

im not sure what the exact story is but I can imagine it has to do something with privatization of property, since before the war most buildings were govt owned (communism)...I know there were some buildings placed on HOLD in Mostar because they breached the building permit regulations. In Bosnia everything is 3 times as complicated then in an average EU country.

I personally think that in the next 15 years we could see a completely renovated and reconstructed Mostar. A lot of the old town has been renovated and restored, but some placed in the newer parts of the city still stand abandoned or as they were after the war. Many old buildings from the communist era still stand as they did after the war. This is mainly the fault of the Mostar local govt since many new buildings have been building, instead of renovating and using excising structures.

But Mostar was pretty much like Berlin & Warsaw after 45', totally demolished. When you drive through the city now there are still some buildings with war scares on them, but I think A LOT of progress has been done in Mostar. Just thinking back to 95' most streets were completely gone and sunk due to bombings. So things are going for the better there, slowly but surely.

[beren_me]

Curtea Veche("Old Court"), Bucharest XIV-XVIII century.Digital reconstruction as it looked during Constantin Brancoveanu's reign ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Brâncoveanu ), before being destroyed by fire in 1718 and an earthquake in 1738.[images from http://reconstituiri.ro/galerii/gale...reconstituire/ ]

[beren_me]

[beren_me]

Today...



from http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fișier:Curtea_Veche.jpg

[redbaron_012]

What people don't realise is we all die.....we all have a short life, relatively speaking ! maybe 80 years ? and memories even less ? So when a structure is rebuilt it is for generations not just the people that lived when it was first built or rebuilt. Here in Australia....a new world country by comparison an historic building on a pier was burnt down. There was much controversy whether it should be replaced by a modern structure or the original be recreated. Now some years past....the old was reconstructed and now it's as if it was never gone.....I look back to the tower ( Campanile ) in St. Marks Square, Venice. It collapsed in the early 1900's and was replaced yet a skyscraper in New York although now older is looked on as a new copy of this structure. We have a Parliament House in Melbourne that has never been completed yet some feel to use original plans would be wrong ? Many Cathedrals in Europe took centuries to complete so wonder why people can't accept a wonderful era of architecture can't still be used. People are funny.......

[wolfpaw]

That Birmingham Library is hideous, hideous, hideous.



Exeter:

This:



http://www.oldukphotos.com/devon_exeter.htm

Replaced with this:


http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_...fordstreet.php


http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/p...hayphotos.html

Since demolished and replaced with this crap:


http://www.princesshay-apartments.co...p-about-us.php

Welcome to 'historic' Britain. What a total joke.

[cameronpaul]

I totally agree - the destruction of much of Britain's heritage in the 60's and 70''s and to a slightly lesser extent in the 80's was solely due to arrogant politicians and corrupt developers trying to make that "fast buck" with the pathetic excuse of being oh so modern!!
As a result we are left with all that shit, some of which thank goodness is coming down now but much remains.
The damage done in this country during WW2 was totally insignificant compared to what happened in the following decades.

[wolfpaw]

Originally Posted by cameronpaul

As a result we are left with all that shit, some of which thank goodness is coming down now but much remains. The damage done in this country during WW2 was totally insignificant compared to what happened in the following decades.

This

[El_Greco]

This one was posted in Baltics forums -

Originally Posted by Index_LT

After seeing that everybody is hungry of projects I'll add this.

Biržai castle arsenal is being rebuilt on existing fundament. It will be one store renaissance building (Although it is argued that before destruction second floor was being built). After this we are also planning to rebuil the castle gates.



Arsenal is that big building on the left.

p.s. Maybe I will make some photos soon.

Birzai castle (the building at the top) was rebuilt in the 1980 and this is what it looks like today -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir%C5%BEai_Castle

I dont think the earthworks exist today or that there are any plans to rebuild those.

[Index_LT]

These bastions exist in their original form. They are only grown up with the trees which didn't exist when fortress was functional. There were some efforts to cut them down and return the fortress it's original view, but they were stopped by the greens.

You can see those bastions in this areal photo:



taken from jonis.eu page.

[El_Greco]

Ah I see, my mistake.

[Index_LT]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

Ah I see, my mistake.

It's not so easy to know such things when you're not local. Actually, with back wall of main building it was only part of castle which stood before rebuilding.

[z0nnebril]

They never reconstruct something here in the Netherlands!

[JohnnyMass]

Het Loo Gardens are a recreation.

[z0nnebril]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMass

Het Loo Gardens are a recreation.

Gardens...come on! I want buildings!

[*****]

Old city Drežnik

Before reconstruction



during Reconstruction









the end

[J-Ph]

Originally Posted by *****

/.../
Old city Drežnik
/.../

Nice. When and why was it destroyed, and when was it rebuilt ?


A few other examples in France :
- Heavy restorations of the XIXth century may sometimes actually be considered reconstructions :
One of the most known (and controversial) restorations : Pierrefonds, a big XIVth century castle, 70 km north of Paris, restored by Viollet-le-Duc in the late XIXth century :

Nort-east and north aisles, before and after restoration :


East and North aisles, during and after restoration :






- After the world wars, emblematic buildings were generally restored (unlike less prestigious ones, not to mention historical districts, which were more or less “modernized” on that occasion).
Reims cathedral, partially rebuilt after WW1, is a well known example. About 50 km from Reims is another, less known, partially rebuilt cathedral : Soissons.

Soissons cathedral after WW1 :

source : culture.gouv.fr

source : culture.gouv.fr



Today :

source : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...ale-facade.jpg


source : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...Soissons13.JPG


source :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...drale-pano.jpg


We saw Arras belfry (northern France) page one. Here are pictures of one of the market squares. We see the same row of houses on both pictures.
Grand Place during WW1 (I don’t know where this comes from) :


Today :

(source : http://commondatastorage.googleapis....l/20374188.jpg